March 09, 2004 The day the
earth shook.... from a massive gas kick at the 'Arbaney' well that
rumbled the ground over a mile away in all directions.

Three weeks later, a 115 million cubic feet blow
out of natural gas followed at the 'Schwartz' well.

During that 2004 seep, EnCana had failed to
re-cement a well which lost circulation (dropping thousands of feet of
well-bore cement presumably into an underground fault). They failed to
re-cement the well then went ahead and fracked it anyway, without telling
anyone what they had done.

After the seep was discovered, too late for my father
who already drank the water, EnCana was ordered to re-cement the well.
Failed cementing
is often cited as the sole reason behind instances where ground water
appears to have been contaminated by drilling and fracking operations.
Unfortunately, these instances are becoming
increasingly common across the US and internationally.

EnCana re-cemented the well, and the seep eased
off, maybe 80 percent. However, regardless of cementing which was presumed
to have sealed the leaking well, the remainder of the seep continues
unabated, pumping benzene far in excess of state allowances (and possibly fracking chemicals) into the
ground water of West Divide Creek. The COGCC (Colorado Oil and gas
Conservation Commission), the EPA, not even EnCana can explain why the seep continues,
even as fracking looms as the prime suspect. We cannot know about the
fracking chemicals because federal and state laws protect EnCana from disclosing them.

A short moratorium followed the 2004 seep, but was
soon lifted under pressure from EnCana and other operators to continue drilling.

In 2008 a second seep emerged. This time, however,
the COGCC, under new director, Dave Neslin, and under new Democratic Governor,
Ritter,
turned away refusing to investigate until years later. Finally, in 2010,
upon an initial effort to investigate the 2008 seep (without ever actually
acknowledging it) production gas containing methane, propane, butane, ethane
and pentane was found to have emerged
in new areas of West Divide Creek as well as within a neighbor's water well.

While initially promising, that investigation fell completely silent
upon a third party's engineering review of suspect area wells (all of which
have been fracked). Finally, almost a year later and after the COGCC subjected
the original report to at
least four different interpretations for purposes of four different
presentations to four different entities (BLM, EPA, COGCC and a handful of
landowners), the report was released.

Pushed as a tool of justification, the report
(without benefit of a ground and surface water review or an environmental
review) formed the basis of the COGCC's decision to allow EnCana to drill
directly into the existing and still unexplained 2004 / 2008 hydro-geologic
seep structure. Why is this important? Because - like the 2004
"investigation" the 2010 "investigation" was once
again inappropriately narrowed in scope excluding incredibly telling
components of operational failure including hydrology, surface impacts and
the role of the 800 pound gorilla in the room... hydraulic fracturing. The
investigation
concluded prematurely and it remains incomplete - reflecting the COGCC's
habitual pattern of insufficient and narrowly addressed inquiry.

It is this inappropriate analysis coupled with
EnCana's aggressive and heedless disregard for consequence which has
produced avoidable catastrophe after avoidable catastrophe along West Divide
Creek... and impacting all downstream water users.

With the blessing of the COGCC, EnCana is now
pillaging the remainder of West Divide Creek by drilling into and exploiting
a fragile and sensitive watershed, already hemorrhaging benzene.
Click here for the visuals.
Drilling began January 9th, 2012... oh, incidentally... less than a month
later, as reported by the magazine YellowScene, COGCC's Director, Dave
Neslin, left his post to work for a law firm which represents EnCana.

Despite the continuing, unexplained 2004 and 2008
seeps meeting every criteria for the EPA's new hydraulic fracturing study,
the region was excluded as an area of interest. It had been scheduled as
"Case Study Number 2"... that is, until the study's overly political
advisory panel persuaded the EPA to excise it from the study. Why not study
the only known case in the US where hydraulic fracturing was directly
implicated in a massive blowout that continues unexplained to this day? Perhaps because of what it
might reveal which can be neither fixed nor defended and which might
actually curtail the heedless, aggressive pursuit of natural gas across the
country together with its infrastructural development as the new oil.

This website stands at a testament to truth. Around
the world, money can indeed buy a lot of silent studies, skewed science,
quieted victims and greased policy. But, here, truth rings as loud and clear
as the wailing rivers, mountains and skies of Summerhawk Valley.

My home, Summerhawk Valley, is sacred ground to the Utes who lived and hunted here. It was also recently host and home to an
incredibly diverse and robust population of animals native to Western
Colorado... animals like, bear, badger, coyote, cougar, elk, deer, bald and
golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, wild turkey, cranes,
songbirds and leopard frogs. Since the natural gas seep in 2004 and the
second one in 2008, these animal populations have taken hit after hit. I've
found birds, rabbits, frogs and insects dead, dying and paralyzed. I've seen
barren seasons when elk did not calve, and I've seen an aborted deer
fetus lying in the ditch.

As early as eighty years ago, Utes were still scaffolded upon their transition into the spirit world,
here, where I stood on
the rim of the canyon to take this photograph, and where I often stand
to pray.

While I endeavor to relocate from this now toxic
but still sacred place, I will not abandon it, for it has sustained me
in myriad ways. It is my hope to one day open my home, the home Blackcloud
built himself, to students. So that whether their interest is science,
spirituality, or both, they can stay and study this impacted but incredibly
resilient valley and strengthen themselves from its lessons.

My father, Robert Blackcloud, was an avid outdoorsman and survivalist.
He was also a former Recon Marine
and Viet Nam veteran. An investigator for the Justice Department. A
cowboy and an Indian. An artist, naturopath and spiritual leader. All that
and then some.

He loved Summerhawk. It spoke to his heart like it
does mine.

He died of pancreatic cancer two years after
consuming water from West Divide Creek that was later found to have been
tainted with benzene.

He
was the sharpest, toughest man I've ever met, and there is no doubt in my mind, death
hasn't slowed him down at all. Just changed the nature of the game a little.
Like he always said: "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome."

He's the guy you may have seen lighting the creek
on fire in the film Gasland. That creek, by the way, West Divide Creek...
runs through Summerhawk Valley. It's the creek he drank from before he died.

The COGCC posted a "Gasland correction document" on
the state's website wherein they attempted to discredit our reports of
impacts to West Divide Creek. Since that time (though it has indeed taken
several years to get there) science has shown every claim to be true.
Nonetheless, the COGCC has not "corrected" its error. After a decade
of our relentless efforts to broaden knowledge regarding the devastation of
West Divide Creek, it has become apparent that truth simply doesn't serve
the COGCC's apparent priority mission to promote the natural gas industry.
It therefore remains denied, ignored, mischaracterized and minimized.

This site is dedicated to
truth as it stands: stark, complete, genuine and telling. It is also
dedicated to my family and all families struggling to preserve their basic
human rights and freedoms in a time when our Constitution is considered
irrelevant, truth is seen as a lie and science is twisted as a
mechanism of manipulation.

With deepest love and gratitude to Blackcloud ~ fierce peacemaker and
warrior ~ as the situation called forth.

Earlier in 2011, the natural gas
industry unleashed a 'friendly fracasaurus' on East Coast kids in the form
of a coloring book explaining the happy, joyful, benign nature of hydraulic fracturing.

I figured, those who suspect
differently needed their own poser dude, so here he is.

Frank the Fracked.

Fracked Frank, lives on West
Divide Creek, Colorado... and site of one of the biggest, fracked-up blow-outs in
North American natural gas drilling history.

Frank has his own ideas about
what's up with fracking, and after years of discovery and deduction
inclusive of field observations, industry interviews and thorough review of
stacks of multi-sourced reports in the fields of geology, hydrology,
biology, physics, chemistry and engineering, he's happy to share them with you
here.

Regardless of contradictory,
skewed and misleading reports and positions from sources with agendas to
preserve and advance, only one, cohesive scientific theory emerges... and
its pretty hard to ignore or mischaracterize. You can bet I tell it like I
see it - well, with Frank's help of course.

Trying to keep from being
fracked yourself? Already been fracked?

For less than a dollar, take
control with the tools to stand tall. To the point and very thorough, this
comprehensive guide to resolving conflict by evolving it is
aptly called: You And What Army? How to
Neutralize Conflict and Negotiate Justice for the Totally Outgunned, Inwardly Timid, Burnt Out or Socially Defunct

An eight-year project finally completed in 2011
and utilized by universities internationally, it applies to far
more than injustice in the gas fields. You can find both the physical book
or the e-book (e-book is .99 cents) on Amazon. The physical book can also be
ordered through any US bookseller (ISBN: 978-0-9664505-8-3). Here's
the
Amazon link

Consortium of the
Frac'dDetails on incidents across the
country where adverse impacts are suspected of being caused from drilling
and/or fracking operations. Includes links to grassroots organizations advocating for
responsible development

Divide Creek Seep 2004- One of the first and biggest fracking blow-outs in
North American history. Still going strong after 8 years... but no one's
talking about why... except me. This is where the journey begins, amid
threats and explosions, beneath the heavy hand of corporate influence at its
worst... and generating a toxic legacy that would not only come to threaten
the rest of the world within a decade, but come back full circle in 2012 to
reveal the insidious nature of natural gas and its devastatingly corrosive
impact on everything it touches.

UpdatesOnly a year after the 2004 blowout and the
resulting moratorium was lifted, EnCana proceeds to drill 80 new wells
within a mile of my home. By January 2012, all but 9 are in... and so is a
new seep...

Mean Energy-
Sure, industry brings a few jobs to impacted regions, but they bring a heck
of a lot else. See what can happen to individuals, the environment,
communities and economic diversity when the boom
hits.

Site
Map- The sitemap is strongly recommended
since this site has been added to like a poorly planned remodel... which is
what -- under the pressure of continuous impact and adaptation -- it has
become.